The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Serial port devices are widely used in modern day data centers. At the present time there is a need for a scalable serial port solution along with a unified approach to serial console management. A component that enables a unified approach to serial console management would have particular appeal for administrators of medium size, large and very large datacenters, where dozens, hundreds or even thousands of serial port devices may be in use. Such very large scale data centers are presently operated by corporations such as Google Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., and the LinkedIn Corporation.
It would also be desirable to decrease (or at least maintain) the current cost per serial port for the hardware being used, while offering advanced software features that can be easily implemented in a unified, scalable serial port solution. A new serial port architecture and solution would provide data center management professionals a greater degree of integration with their own software tools and easy management of the new serial port solution and connected target devices.
Still further, it would be desirable to provide serial port hardware devices that can be easily and quickly reconfigured with different combinations of RJ-45 ports and USB ports to enable the data center professional to adapt the devices to the changing needs of a modern day data center.